BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The heartache of having a missing child is bad enough. What's worse for Pauline Harden is that no one seems to care.
Her daughter, Dorothy Douglas, turned 43 on Thursday. There was no celebration. Only waiting and praying.
About a million people in the United States are reported missing each year. The FBI estimates 850,000 of those cases involve missing children.
But the highest priority cases do not involve people such as Mrs. Harden's daughter, who has a history of drug addiction and prostitution.
After two months of searching, Mrs. Harden's instinct tells her her daughter is dead. When a black woman's decomposed body was found last week in Bond Hill, Mrs. Harden thought it might be her daughter. It wasn't.
So she waits more, and she prays more.
"I try not to let it get me down," the 65-year-old Evanston woman said. "I pray to the Lord to give me strength, but still it hurts. She's still human. She's still my daughter. She's still somebody's mother."
Lisa Douglas, 28, of Walnut Hills was the last family member to see her mother. It was Aug. 26 at a store in Walnut Hills.
Dorothy Douglas had been staying in Westwood with a friend. Her family says she was a daily crack cocaine user, and no matter how much she strayed, she always stopped by her mother's and kept in touch with the family.
She usually walked the streets in Walnut Hills. She had no car and few possessions. She didn't take any of her clothes with her. Her daughter found out her mother's food stamp card was last used Sept. 9. But that was the last clue.
It's unlikely Dorothy Douglas' case will get the national attention her family seeks.
"The problem with missing adults is adults have a right to come and go as they want," said Mary Miller, an office manager for Families & Friends of Missing Persons & Violent Crime Victims, an agency that supports families in similar situations.
Dorothy Douglas is one of 34 Cincinnati adults reported missing this year whose cases are still open. Police have about three times as many pending cases of missing children, and children and elderly tend to get the highest priority.
Cincinnati Police Spc. Mary Lou Elfers-Waller, a detective on Dorothy Douglas' case, is hoping for clues. Anyone who has seen Dorothy Douglas since the end of August or knows where she might be is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 352-3040. Callers may remain anonymous.
The frustration her family feels in waiting for answers is universal, said Gayle File, executive director and founder of ID Resource Center. The agency in Albuquerque, N.M., runs on donations to investigate missing person cases free.
"Usually, they're a pretty low priority because a lot of adults are missing because they want to be missing," Mrs. File said. "But as far as adults are concerned, everybody is somebody's kid."
Dorothy Douglas has two children and two grandchildren. Years ago, she had a steady job in the nursing field. She enjoyed homemaking and gardening.
Her life hit a downward spiral when her husband was killed in 1982 in a stabbing that was never solved. The next year, her brother was presumed drowned in Tennessee, and his body was never found. Her family has contacted her friends, hung out in the drug circles Dorothy Douglas frequented, and posted fliers in churches and bars.
But just because Dorothy Douglas was a drug addict doesn't make her family love her any less.
"She's a person outside of being an addict," said Lisa Douglas, a recovering addict herself. "She's a person that people love, and we want to know if she's OK."
